Hours before I was supposed to propose to another woman, four six-year-old boys walked into a restaurant bathroom looking so much like me that even I, the man who ran one of Boston’s most powerful crime families, couldn’t move. Then I heard their mother’s voice outside the door, the voice of the woman I had loved six years earlier, and suddenly the engagement ring in my pocket meant nothing.

The victory in the boardroom was decisive, but the snake's head still remained in Wellesley.

At 4:00 PM that afternoon, my security chief, Marco, walked into my private office at the penthouse.

"Boss," Marco reported, his expression grim. "Anthony has moved. He’s called in twenty retired loyalist enforcers to the Wellesley estate. He’s transferring twelve million dollars from his personal Swiss reserves to a private mercenary firm based out of New York."

I looked up from my desk, where I was helping Leo and Lucas build a wooden model ship.

"He's preparing for an internal coup," I said smoothly.

"He thinks he can use his old contacts to declare you mentally unfit under the family charter, seize guardianship of the boys, and reinstate himself as supreme boss," Marco explained.

Clara walked into the office, carrying a tray of warm tea. Her face was calm, but her eyes held a sharp, unyielding steel I hadn't seen six years ago.

"Dominic," Clara said, setting the tray down. "He took six years of our lives because we were afraid of his power. Don't let him spend another day breathing threat into our sons' future."

I stood up, adjusting my shoulder holster beneath my jacket.

"He won't," I said.

Thirty minutes later, a convoy of eight dark SUV armored vehicles pulled up to the heavy wrought-iron gates of the hundred-acre Moretti estate in Wellesley.

The estate security guards at the gate—men who had served my father for twenty years—looked at the massive force approaching and immediately lowered their weapons, raising the iron gates without firing a single shot. They knew who truly paid their salaries now.

The convoy rolled up the long, tree-lined driveway, stopping directly in front of the grand stone mansion.

I stepped out of the lead vehicle, flanked by Marco and twelve fully armed tactical enforcers.

I pushed open the heavy carved-oak front doors of the mansion. The air inside smelled of old leather, cigar smoke, and decay.

Sitting in a high-backed velvet armchair near the grand fireplace in the library was Anthony Moretti. He wore his finest custom suit, a glass of expensive scotch in his hand, a heavy silver revolver resting on the table beside him.

"You brought an army to your father's home, Dominic?" Anthony asked, his voice raspy, not bothering to look up from the fire.

"I brought a cleaning crew, Anthony," I replied, stepping into the warm light of the hearth.

Anthony turned his head slowly, looking at me with cold, bitter disdain. "You ruined thirty years of my work in twenty-four hours. You destroyed the Barrett deal. You introduced a common woman and her illegitimate bastards into the bloodline—"

BANG.

I didn't draw my gun. Marco stepped forward and fired a single shot from his silenced pistol directly into the leg of the antique mahogany table beside Anthony, shattering the wood into splinters and knocking the scotch glass to the floor.

Anthony flinched violently, his face going pale.

"Choose your next words with extreme precision, Anthony," I said, my voice dropping into a register that made the room freeze. "Because if you use the word 'illegitimate' regarding my family again, Marco's next bullet goes between your eyes."

Anthony stared at me, his chest heaving, realizing for the very first time that the young boy he had manipulated for decades was completely gone. In his place stood the undisputed master of Boston.

"What do you want?" Anthony rasped, his hands trembling against the velvet armrests.

I pulled an official legal document from my coat and tossed it onto his lap.

"That is a complete, irrevocable surrender of your family trust allocations, your voting rights, and your residency at this estate," I declared. "You are moving to our private villa in Sicily tonight. You will have a modest allowance, four personal security guards who answer exclusively to me, and zero contact with the United States for the remainder of your life."

Anthony looked at the paper, his jaw clenching tightly. "And if I refuse?"

"If you refuse," I said smoothly, "I turn over the complete financial records of your 1998 land deals to the United States Attorney’s Office. You will spend the rest of your days in a federal penitentiary wearing an orange jumpsuit."

Anthony looked at the legal papers, then looked at the twelve armed enforcers standing behind me in total, silent loyalty.